Aquino puts presidency on the line—Maceda

FORMER senator Ernesto Maceda said Wednesday recent events have exposed the immaturity of the 52-year-old President Benigno Aquino III, and it does not bode well for the country and the people.

He says Mr. Aquino, who is unmarried, has unnecessarily put his presidency on the line by dipping his finger on the impeachment trial of Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona and “handling it badly.”

“Considering the immaturity he is showing these days, it would be very dangerous for an immature person to have so much power,” Maceda said in an interview over ABS-CBN television.

Corona has accused Mr. Aquino and his Liberal Party allies of instigating his impeachment in the House of Representatives. Mr. Aquino has not bothered to erase this perception by issuing direct statements on Corona’s alleged guilt even if his impeachment trial is still going on in the Senate.

Corona says the root of the issue is the Supreme Court’s November 2011 decision stripping Mr. Aquino’s family of the ownership of its 6,000- hectare estate in Tarlac and ordering its distribution to about 4,000 tenants.

Mr. Aquino’s family has sought a reconsideration of the high court’s decision.

Maceda, a former Senate president and Ambassador to the United States, says Mr. Aquino’s interference in the impeachment case is dangerous for the country, but it could also lead to his downfall.

“He is now putting himself squarely on the line to a point where it could be said rightly, ‘If he loses this case, then he personally loses and his leadership weakens’,” Maceda said.

But if Mr. Aquino manages to remove Corona, “he will control the Supreme Court, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. It will expose him to grave temptations of being authoritarian if not a dictator, to say the least.”

Malacañang spokeswoman Abigail Valte rejected Maceda’s statements and said the President “continues to do the work of governance.”

“While he does, from time to time, get to see parts of the impeachment, he does not monitor it obsessively as some people would like to propagate,” Valte said. –Manila Standard Today